Active Agents

Tricked into thinking that race is WHO WE ARE–is ESSENTIAL to our identity!
Tricked into thinking that race is entitled to our allegiance.

And so we surrender to its SIREN, calling us to COAGULATE into sides, fortified to defend against the OPPOSITION–the opposition that race created. Yes, itsa CRAZY CONUNDRUM!

“Mr. Race. You took a WHOLE, divided it into pieces and called each piece greater than the other. Then you say to the pieces, ‘Defend yourself against the others! By destroying them, we will be WHOLE again!’”

Race has us all TWISTED and TANGLED

CONFUSED and MANGLED

VIOLATING sisters and brothers in pursuit of self-prescribed justice.

If we destroy the lines, then we can all be on the same side.

Mr. Race, you have no place in this space! —Lucretia Carter Berry, 2015

We are engaging in a paradigm shift. Our eyes are wide open and we can so clearly see the forces that have shaped our national consciousness by writing many of us out of the human family and leaving the rest of us to function without a societal mirror. Decision-makers and media representatives systematically reframe our history to cultivate fear and ignorance. Fear and ignorance are a perfect recipe for feeding the narratives that subtly seduce us into indifference to racism, segregation, poverty, genocide and the list of dehumanization goes on.The consequenceshave been reprehensible, disgraceful and seemingly unforgivable.

BUT as we take on the responsibility of becoming active agents, we are empowered to reject the frames, narratives and subliminal messages that have lied to us—that have broken our human family!

A frame is an unconscious lens through which we view an issue or problem. Related to social cognition processes encoded in our brains, frames help us quickly make sense of complex information and then make individual and collective decisions on that basis. These processes generate deeply embedded perspectives that are easily activated in the subconscious, especially through devices like images, stories, stereotypes and slogans. For example, ‘Hard work yields prosperity.’

Narratives are specific stories (whether real, exaggerated, or fictionalized) used to convey or reinforce a given frame. For example, ‘Those who have less are not hard workers, are lazy and are looking for a hand out.’

Messages are the takeaway from frames and narratives that invoke specific action. For example, ‘Poor people want a hand-out. Don’t help poor people.’

The bad news is our forefathers made up this crap. The good news is our forefathers made up this crap! Therefore we can un-do this crap!

We can change our frame! Dr. Caroline Leaf* says so. We can switch on our brains, question everything, no longer passively accept information that dehumanizes people, and embrace the responsibility to think and act outside of the lies we’ve been told.

We can choose a frame of justice, love, grace, mercy, friendship, forgiveness and ONEness. And within that frame, we can write narratives that speak to the God-value in all of us. And our message, the take away, will be one of healing, change, and inclusion. We will live, move and ‘be’ very differently than we are now.

This is where we are after Session 3. To continue moving forward, do the homeworkin preparation for Session 4, Tuesday, Oct. 6.